Berkeley Lab Search

Autobiography of Lab’s Gabor Somorjai Released

January 31, 2014

It might seem odd to describe a Hungarian Jewish refugee who survived the Nazi holocaust and Soviet tanks as having lived a “charmed” life, but Gabor Somorjai of the Materials Sciences Division expresses a relentlessly positive and up-beat attitude in his autobiography “An American Scientist: The Autobiography of Gabor A. Somorjai.” Widely recognized as the father of modern catalysis who revolutionized the scientific understanding of surface interactions, Somorjai tells of his escape from Hungary and his landing in Berkeley, “the right place and at the right time.” He then details a career that has spanned six decades and earned him just about every honor a scientist can receive, including the National Medal of Science.